Good evening. As a fellow member of the self-publishing workshop group, I wish to welcome you and introduce you to my reviewing style. I stopped by your portfolio and decided on this gem.
I must warn you that I tend to be blunt with my reviews. If you are looking to publish a book, kind, soft, wishy washy reviews won't help. I never want you to feel that I am putting you down or implying that you can't write. My goal is to help lift above the thousands of other writers out there and make your stories stand out and say Read ME. If I thought you weren't any good, I wouldn't spend so much time on my review.
You have a good, humorous story that addresses a common problem: paperwork. And I thought computers were supposed to eliminate all that paperwork.
You set the scene with a tremendous thunder storm, however, it is on the weak side -It was a stormy afternoon. You follow up with words designed to tell us how stormy it was. The problem with the opening phrase - it was a stormy afternoon - is that it is weak. The verb - was - just sits there, not doing much. Do you think you could spice it up with an opening like this -
Dark clouds shrouded the sky, thunder rolled, lightning lit the heavens as a deluge slammed the Hospice office.
You continue the second paragraph in the same manner - Everyone was quiet in the office.
Maybe you could follow up with something like this - Thick, brick walls deadened the roar of the thunder, creating a false peace for the disturbed team members.
About half way through the story you mention how dark it is even though it is early afternoon. Could you introduce that idea here in the opening?
Darkness descended on them, sending each one deep into their own private world.
When you introduce the scream, you use an adverb - suddenly. Like the verb - was - adverbs are weak and don't do a good job of showing us the action: they simply tell it.
Maybe something like - A scream pierced the silence: loud, eerie, wailing. Horrified, each member searched the room trying to locate the source.
Not the best, but I hope you get the idea.
Be careful of repeating words and phrases. In four short paragraphs, you repeat some form of 'scream' six times: two are almost identical. Another word that appears too often is 'seem' and its variations. Again, this is a weak, telling word.
"What was that?" asked the Team looking around at each other to see who had screamed.
Some thought on this sentence:
You have a question mark, so do you need the tag 'asked the Team? The tag is redundant.
Also, you have a myriad of people saying the same thing in unison. This may happen during a responsive reading at a church service, but not with a group of distraught people.
Would a better question be "Who screamed"?
Later on you have the group responding as one to the charts. Again, they all won't say the exact same thing. Would it be better to have a single person reply and the rest agree with that person?
Here is a sentence that made me pause and reread it - You could hear a pin drop, but what they heard was moaning...
If it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, how could they hear moaning?
They checked all the offices, the office manage - You should use a colon after the phrase 'all the offices' because you are starting a list of rooms. Without the colon, I wasn't expecting a list, so I had to stop and reread the sentence.
Story writers need to create word pictures that let the reader see the action in their mind. Huddle is a good, strong picture word. It is easy to picture a group of people clustered around each other. This is how you used it - In a huddle, they went into this room.
The difficulty here is how do you get a group of terrified people through a narrow doorway in a huddle? Would it be better to say they formed a huddle after squeezing through the narrow opening? Just a thought.
Another random thought. How about this sentence - Everyone in the group was getting more and more frightened and the clerical staff was no-where in sight!
You have two sentences, two complete, but different ideas in one sentence connected by the word 'and'.
First sentence - Everyone in the group was getting more and more frightened
Second sentence - the clerical staff was no-where in sight!
I understand you are introducing the idea that the clerical staff is instigating this prank, but it has nothing to do with the first part. It would make sense if the group was afraid the clerical staff had been abducted or something like that which would increase their fear, but I don't see that.
You can leave off the phrase 'in the group' and simply say 'everyone was getting'. But now we are back to the beginning with a weak phrase 'was getting' followed by another weak phrase 'more and more'.
'More and more frightened' would be stronger as a single word like, terrified, horrified, petrified, etc.
To produce an exclamation point, you have to push shift and then the number 1. I believe that is appropriate because you should only use an exclamation point once in a story, if that often. An exclamation point is put there by the author to let the reader know this is extremely important! If you want to rise above, you need to write strong sentences that don't require an exclamation point. If you use it too often, you stand a good chance of loosing your reader.
A closing thought on your closing sentences - What is the moral of this story you may ask? Finish you paperwork completely and on time so the charts can be at rest!
As soon as you say, 'what is the moral of this story' you are admitting that you didn't tell it good enough for the reader to discover it on their own. They shouldn't have to ask.
Again, you end the story with an exclamation point. A weak ending to a good story.
What I want to focus on is your last sentence. This is a great sentence, not because of the wording or that it is so powerful or grammatically correct (it should be 'your paperwork, not 'you paperwork'). It is great because it tells the premise of the story in concise wording. Now you can take this sentence and use it as ruler to see if every part of the story measures up to it.
For example, did you do a good job in showing how important completing paperwork is throughout the story. The idea doesn't appear until about the halfway point. Then we discover that it is a practical joke played on the group.
Would it strengthen the idea if you insert it at the beginning? Maybe a rainy day is a good day to finish that dreaded paperwork? Instead of simply slipping into their own world because of the storm, could it be boredom from endless forms that sends them there?
Instead of a generic scream, have it say something. You don't have to give it away, hint at what you are stressing. Maybe something like 'How long, how long are you going to make us wait..." Something that teases the reader and makes them want to keep reading to find out what the voices want.
How about a twist at the end. One person survives: the one who always got the paperwork completed on time, every time.
Maybe something like this - The case is still open to this day, it seems to be one of the unsolvable mysteries of our time. Except for Emily who was heard to say, "Finish you(r) paperwork, completely and on time, every time so the charts can be at rest in peace and leave you alone.
Thank you for posting this story. I look forward to reading future posts in this group. I hope my thoughts are an encouragement to you. Always remember, this is your story. You are the only one who can tell it your way. Use what you can, discard the rest, but keep it your story.
Have a great day, and keep on writing
PennyInPocket
Jim Brown |